‘Resurrection’ Season 1, Episode 8, ‘Torn Apart’: TV Recap

A lot of people returned last week, including Maggie’s mother, Fred’s wife, Barbara. Those two things are connected as Fred goes off the rails and starts to arrange the internment of refugees.

We open on a cicada-like bug rubbing its wings.

Then we see a newly returned Rachel looks at the body of dead Rachel in the morgue. She has no explanation, but tells Tom she thinks the baby is all right.

And picking up at the scene that ended last week, Maggie confronts her mother for not having come to see her. Barbara doesn’t make it better by trying to justify her looking at Maggie but not seeing her because Fred would see her. Rachel doesn’t want to hear “how dark Fred can be,” and tells her mom she needs to tell her dad she’s back. So Barbara goes to see Fred and it appears to go pretty well when she tells him it’s over. Fred says, “It was a long time ago,” and then turns to go watch an old home movie of his young wife and baby. But looks can be deceiving, because Fred takes that hurt and turns it into extreme vigilanteism. That’s not hard to do, because the feds are already in town. Bellamy had summoned help from his boss back in Washington, and the army arrived with supplies for people they think have been stranded by a power outage. Fred tells Stone, over Rachel’s interned body, that the dead people are dangerous and are deceiving people into believing they are their loved ones returned. He and Stone are hatching a plan to “protect people.”

Earlier, Pastor Tom was about to confront evil church lady Helen, walking in very determinedly, but actually she was going straight to a woman she recognized: “Eva?” she says, and hugs her.

The African-American family Jacob met last week is having dinner with the Langstons. They were caught in a flood of some kind, but haven’t found their baby boy. Lucille says helpfully, “Maybe he came back somewhere else.” Fred’s weird plan is taking root though: Henry gets a robocall telling him that anyone with a loved one returned should bring him or her to the gym to get a flu shot and a bunch of other things. Bellamy calls him on this right away, asking to be kept in the loop. Jacob has a bad feeling about it, and Bellamy does too: he keeps the Langstons from going in, and tries to get the Johnsons out too. But a guard won’t let the family out, and blacks them with a gun. “No returned can leave the gym,” he says. Bellamy tells Maggie that this is a trap, that it’s her father’s orders, and she knows why. She tries calling him, but she can’t because phones have been cut in the gym. And Maggie realizes the list they’ve been making of all the returned includes her mother. Destroying the list would ruin Ward’s research, but it would keep the people safe. He says, “rip it up.”

Just then a fire alarm goes off and everybody runs out of the building. Fred runswover shouting “There’s no fire” and then close the door. The people inside look angry. He says, “they’re escaping,” and that upsets a deputy, who believed they were protecting them. He has a family member in there. He throws his badge at Fred. Well at least not all the sheriffs in town are crooked.

Fred lets Gary (Rachel’s killer) out of his cell, and says, “We’re rounding it up.”

Meanwhile, Carl the very crooked deputy is staking out the Langstons, who don’t know what is going on. Bellamy holds a gun to his head and locks him in the back of the police car. Bellamy tells the family what is going on, and Lucille and Henry tell him to take Jacob and run. Jacob is very upset about that, but Henry explains that it’s the only way to keep him safe. They leave, and Fred shows up right after. He knocks on the door, pretending it’s all out of his hands and saying that the government won’t harm the returned, just intern them. When he says, “Some day you’ll thank me for this,” Lucille slaps him. “Everything the old man said about you is right,” his brother Henry tells him. Fred orders his brownshirts (well, they are) to search the house.

But as they do, Fred gets a radio message to come back to the gym. Guards with machine guns are prodding and handcuffing people. Some of them are Fred’s men. Stone says they are going to keep the returned there, under quarantine, which is not what Fred wanted: he wanted them taken away. Maggie refuses to give anything to the government, so she’s handcuffed too. Fred begins to protest but is stopped by a man with a gun. He yells, “I’ll fix this,” to her, and she says, “Haven’t you done enough?”

Pastor Tom has a safe house for Rachel and the Johnsons: someone named Kimberly. Have we seen her before?

Bellamy and Jacob drive by the sign that says “Leaving Arcadia.” Then Jacob says, “What’s that?” On the road ahead are a bunch of shells, cicada shells. A large flying bug hovers at eye level, and then a helicopter flies overhead, as well as cars from each side. Jacob clings to Bellamy and we see for the first time a strange crescent mark on Bellamy’s neck.

What does it mean? Are the bugs aliens? Are they responsible for this return? Are the helicopter and cars enemies or friends?